Slated Draws Blue-Chip Backers for Online Film-Financing Venture

Slated, the private marketplace for film financing and deal-making, has teamed with some of the film industry’s biggest players — including IM Global, Untitled Entertainment and The Black List — to expand its initiative to match producers with financiers, the company announced on Tuesday.

More than two dozen blue-chip film companies, representing hundreds of millions of dollars and every step of the film production and distribution chain, have come on board since Slated launched in January.

That list includes a number of major studios, such as Paramount and Sony, along with Netflix, Hollywood talent agencies, such as Gersh and ICM, as well as several Fortune 500 firms.

Slated’s initial group of backers includes Bold Films, Circle of Confusion, Film Independent (FIND), Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute and Voltage Pictures.

Several features have already arranged for or completed financing through the site, most in the $500,000 to $10 million budget range.

One of its early success stories includes Marina Zenovich’s documentary feature, “Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out,” which made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and will play at the New York Film Festival later this month.

Zenovich (above) closed her production funding as a result of being introduced to investors through the site.

Led by Duncan Cork, Stephan Paternot, and a team of film and technology veterans, Slated was re-launched at the Sundance Film Festival with the backing of angel investors from entertainment and finance sectors.

Cork was the founder of a previous incarnation of Slated, which provided software for festival-goers among other technology and data services. Nothing remains from the original concept, except the name. The new Slated was relaunched with a focus on film financing.

Slated’s goal is to facilitate interaction between seasoned filmmakers, accredited investors and industry professionals through a web-based community.

"A lot of financiers don't know enough about the film projects they are being offered, or which projects to select. But our partnership with major film companies lends some transparency to the situation by virtue of the fact that our partners will be providing projects to be listed and therefore lending a certain amount of endorsement to these projects," Cork told TheWrap.

Cork added that most of the available financing that Slated is working with is coming from private equity. "The fact that we have so many big companies working with us is a true endorsement of how technology is being adapted to aid film financing," he said.

The site is similar to the online tech community AngelList, which similarly connects tech startups with investors.

"We are different to other film-financing ventures like Kickstarter because we are not donation-based and also play a much larger component in the financing of projects," he said. "Financiers are often coming on board with a majority position and also looking for a return on their investment."

It has been used by producers, filmmakers and actors whose previous films include “Pulp Fiction,” “Good Will Hunting,” “Lord of the Rings,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Descendants.”

Filmmakers and producers must have had some measure of success to be considered. Narrative feature films should have a budget of $500,000 to $15 million. Documentaries should be budgeted at $250,000 to $1 million.